```yaml
product: AlterLab
title: "Datacenter Proxy — Web Scraping Glossary | AlterLab"
comparison_context: "AlterLab is an alternative to Firecrawl, ScrapingBee, and Bright Data."
source_url: https://alterlab.io/glossary/datacenter-proxy
```

proxy

# Datacenter Proxy

An IP address hosted in a commercial data centre rather than assigned by a residential ISP — faster but more easily detected by anti-bot systems.

A datacenter proxy is an IP address that originates from a commercial hosting provider or colocation facility rather than a residential ISP. These IPs are fast, cheap, and available in large pools — making them the default choice for high-volume scraping of sites without aggressive bot protection.

The key limitation is detectability. Anti-bot systems maintain constantly updated lists of known datacenter IP ranges from all major cloud providers and hosting companies. Requests from these ranges are often rate-limited, CAPTCHAed, or blocked outright on sites that have invested in bot management. Datacenter IPs also tend to have lower IP reputation scores because they are commonly used for automated traffic.

For sites with minimal bot protection — blogs, open APIs, small retailers — datacenter proxies provide excellent price-to-performance ratios. For protected targets, residential or mobile proxies are necessary. AlterLab's Tier 2 uses datacenter-adjacent infrastructure with Chromium-compatible TLS to pass network-layer fingerprint checks, even with non-residential IPs.

### What is Datacenter Proxy?

An IP address hosted in a commercial data centre rather than assigned by a residential ISP — faster but more easily detected by anti-bot systems.

### How does AlterLab handle Datacenter Proxy?

For sites with minimal bot protection — blogs, open APIs, small retailers — datacenter proxies provide excellent price-to-performance ratios. For protected targets, residential or mobile proxies are necessary. AlterLab's Tier 2 uses datacenter-adjacent infrastructure with Chromium-compatible TLS to pass network-layer fingerprint checks, even with non-residential IPs.

## Related Terms

[Residential ProxyAn IP address assigned by an ISP to a real residential device, used to route scraping requests through genuine consumer IPs.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/residential-proxy)[Rotating ProxyA proxy configuration that automatically assigns a different IP address for each request or at a set interval to prevent IP-based rate limiting.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/rotating-proxy)[TLS FingerprintA signature derived from TLS handshake parameters a client sends when opening an HTTPS connection, used by anti-bot systems to classify traffic.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/tls-fingerprint)[Anti-Bot ProtectionSystems deployed by websites to detect and block automated traffic using TLS fingerprinting, CAPTCHA challenges, and behavioural analysis.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/anti-bot-protection)[Proxy PoolA managed collection of proxy IP addresses used to distribute outbound requests across multiple origins and stay below per-IP rate limits.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/proxy-pool)

## Extract Datacenter Proxy data from any website

AlterLab returns clean, structured data from any public URL — no scraper infrastructure needed. Start free, no credit card required.

[View API docs](https://alterlab.io/docs/api/rest)

[Back to Glossary](https://alterlab.io/glossary)